UNC Basketball: The 9 lowest lows of the Roy Williams era

5. Rashad McCants becomes public enemy No. 1

Not that anyone really liked Rashad McCants all that much anyway, but in June of 2014 he made sure that he was hated by anyone and everyone that was associated with, or had any allegiance to the University of North Carolina.

It was then that McCants, nearly 10 years removed from his time at the school, appeared on ESPN’s Outside the Lines claiming that he had taken phony classes at UNC, and benefitted from tutors writing his papers. The former Tar Heel doubled-down on his claims less than a week later when he made an encore appearance on Outside the Lines, expanding on his initial claims that he and his teammates cheated their way through school in order to stay academically eligible to play basketball.

McCants called on members of the 2004-05 Tar Heels, asking them to release their college transcripts and stating that “the truth is there in the transcripts.” All 16 other members of the team released a statement that vehemently denied McCants’ claims, and head coach Roy Williams followed suit in a separate interview. The damage of McCants’ allegations would have serious implications on the UNC basketball program for years to come, but we’ll talk more about that later.

McCants’ name is rarely uttered from a North Carolina basketball fan. When mentioned, they typically respond with things like, “Never heard of him!” or “Who’s that?” And he’s pretty easy to forget about these days, as his professional career flared out after a couple of brief stints in the NBA, followed by short stops in the G-League and overseas.